Boston Bruins continue to pile up points

Bud Barth TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Published Wednesday January 30, 2013 at 6:00 am

The last time the Bruins enjoyed a start like this, the names on the back of the uniforms were Orr, Esposito, Sanderson, Bucyk and Cheevers. It was 1970, the season between two Stanley Cup championships, and that Boston team also started 5-0-1 on its way to a 57-14-7 record.

PHOTO/ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Boston's Nathan Horton, right, is congratulated by teammates David Krejci, left, and Johnny Boychuk after scoring in the third period.

The last time the Bruins enjoyed a start like this, the names on the back of the uniforms were Orr, Esposito, Sanderson, Bucyk and Cheevers.

It was 1970, the season between two Stanley Cup championships, and that Boston team also started 5-0-1 on its way to a 57-14-7 record. Only a lanky rookie Montreal goaltender named Ken Dryden spoiled what would have been three consecutive titles for that team.

It's anyone's guess how this season will turn out, but these Bruins are piling up victories and confidence with every game. They trailed New Jersey, 1-0, in the third period on Tuesday night and were being suffocated by the Devils' tight checking.

But Nathan Horton, who scored the game-winner with 1:50 left to play the night before at Carolina, got the tying goal with 4:05 left in regulation, Brad Marchand bagged the go-ahead goal in the sixth round of the shootout, and Tuukka Rask made 25 saves before inducing five consecutive New Jersey misses in the tie-breaker as the Bruins pulled out a dramatic, 2-1 victory before the usual sellout crowd at TD Garden.

“You're down a goal, you're down two goals, it doesn't matter,” said Horton, who has three goals to share the team lead with David Krejci, who made the pass to set him up. “You just work hard to fight back and that's the kind of team we are, the kind of guys we are on this team, and we all know we can come back when we're down. I think that's what makes us so good.”

Milan Lucic and Krejci joined Horton on the three-man rush that produced the goal. Horton's shot, on which he said he partially fanned, came from just right of the slot and went between goalie Johan Hedberg's legs.

Krejci and Lucic got assists; Krejci's was his 200th with the Bruins.

“It was a big goal for us,” said Krejci, who now has a team-leading five helpers. “It was a pretty simple play. At the end, Horty made a great shot.”

Both teams came into the game without a regulation loss, and they left the same way. New Jersey is now 3-0-2, Boston 5-0-1.

“I'm really proud of the way our guys handled it,” said coach Claude Julien, whose team played the night before and didn't get back until 1 a.m. “Obviously, we were a determined group in that third period.”

The Devils scored the only goal of the first two periods, a power-play strike by David Clarkson, who deflected Marek Zidlicky's shot from the left point past Rask at 8:30 of the middle period. Clarkson, who had seven shots on goal in the game, now has a point in all five Devils games (3-2-5 totals).

The goal put the brakes on the Bruins' season-opening streak of 24 consecutive power-play kills. But they skated away four New Jersey power plays besides Rask made some outstanding stops, none better than when he robbed Clarkson on a sizzling one-timer in the first minute of the third period. He foiled Krystofer Barch on a pair of bang-bang chances from right in front during a delayed penalty call late in the first period, and also thwarted Clarkson and Ryan Carter (deflection) later in the first period.

The Bruins' best chances in the first two periods were a Lucic shot from in front of the net that went wide midway through the first period, and Marchand's sizzling one-timer from the slot -- set up by Seguin -- that Hedberg blocked in the final minute of the first period.

“We've got a lot of guys that were here when we won (the Cup), and when we did that, we went through every situation you can think of,” Marchand said. “We know that it's not over until the buzzer goes and we've show that a couple of times already.”

Seguin led off the shootout and gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead with a forehand over Hedberg's glove, but the goal was disallowd because a fan threw what the officials called an “unidentified food object” that slid through the crease behind the goalie just before Seguin shot.

“I think it affected me more than the goalie,” Seguin said.

Seguin did get a do-over, though, and this time he moved in with a backhander to score, even though he considered repeating the same forehand move. It was a big goal, too, because Ilya Kovalchuk then scored for the Devils to tie it.

Marchand said of his winner: “I had that move in my head before I went in. I've done it a few times in practice, so I figured I'd try it and it worked.”